A Writer Reads (and takes a holiday with Kelven's Riddle)

I've been reading much lately, mostly absent from this computer. I have not read this much in a very long time. Usually, you can find me standing by the recycling can, reading a week-old newspaper, but currently I have been passionately involved with books. And, honestly, I'm happier doing that than being on the computer. I have no love affair with it at all. The longer I'm in its clutches, the more I can feel it sucking the heart and soul and humanity out of me - unless I'm writing.

(If you're curious, you can find out what I have been reading by visiting Seeking the Prince of Peace.)

This whole week I have been waiting for even more reading material - not entirely new material to me, but extremely special - and I have been blowing off putting a single word of my own on a screen.

Yesterday the special book, Kelven's Riddle Book 4: A Storm Upon The Plain, arrived. I was surprised at its heft when I lifted it out of the box. I had the great privilege of reading it in manuscript form, loose papers that I flipped over on the floor when I was done with them, occasionally marking them with my dribbled cocoa. I had no clue I had read so many words. And what words! They captivated me and broke my heart badly at the conclusion. Because of that, of course, the manuscript became my new favorite book, and now in all its final splendor it is here in my hands.

Somehow Dad, author Daniel T. Hylton, trusted me enough to grant me access to the story before many others read it. I can't convey the honor in that; I think you have to be a writer to understand. And then it is this astounding story - better even than A Walking Flame (Book 2 in the series), a wonderful read - and I couldn't believe my good fortune as a first reader, even when I spent the last four chapters crying like a fool late at night, knowing my kids would drag me out of bed at an ungodly hour the next morning.

For all the battles and tension and conspiracy and righteous revenge found in many of its chapters, Chapter 63 was my favorite. It is one of the tightest, most suspenseful chapters I have ever read. I, a simple girl who has always wished to write just one mystery book, admire so much what Dad did there.

But more than anything, this fourth book in the series made me realize anew that this epic fantasy tale is truly a love story. The final chapters in this book illuminate that in terrifying, powerful ways. Yes, I know it is full of violence, death, fear, foreboding, strange creatures and the absolutely necessary, terrible friction between good and evil, but that is all meaningless unless you understand that Aram and Ka'en love. That's what it's all for, that love, and the hope of peace to go with it.

I see them all lined up on my book shelf, all four completed books in this series together. The first three books I have read and read again, immersing myself in favorite chapters and endings repeatedly while I waited for the next installment. This fourth book, with its chapters that haunted me for days because of the magnitude of the loss contained within them, makes me prouder still of what Dad accomplished. Despite many interruptions and constant challenges and setbacks in the process, he created an incredible story with his slave/hero/king Aram and the horse Florm, the Lashers, warrior Thaniel, Ka'en and dear loyal Durlrang. Book 4 is his best yet, as it should be, and I can't wait for the last part of the tale in Book 5.

Dad, thank you with all my heart for allowing me to be one of the first to come along on this adventure. Send me number five as soon as you can!

Short post - fantasy, candy canes and No. 4

Many years ago as a young teenager, I spent a January and February in an old chair in my room sucking on leftover Christmas candy canes and reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy by Tolkien. My rabbit Freddy reclined on my lap, and if while engrossed in a particularly exciting part, I neglected to stroke his soft black fur, he turned his head and sank his sharp little teeth into the flesh of my hand. Peppermint sticks, black rabbits, and little gold rings with deceptive power are now forever linked in my brain.

That winter still comes back to mind each year, begging for me to scour the tree for any forgotten candy ornaments and renew my relationship with books. As a mother of four kids, I find it hard to keep that relationship going. I can either write sometimes or read novels sometimes, but not both. I do still lean against the walls in my home now and then, perusing a chunk of the newspaper before I give it, and all its sundry information, up to recycling. But its not the same as curling myself around a book, letting my house go to pot, and hearing my children whine, "Mama, are you done with that chapter yet? You promised to come outside."

"I'm almost done!" I'd call back to their sighs.

This year I haven't even begun. And what I really need right now to conjure up that old excitement in the story is Book 4 of Kelven's Riddle, but I can't have it. Or so I've been told.

I have great memories of nursing my younger two children and putting various responsibilities on hold while eagerly ingesting Kelven's Riddle in it various forms. As the daughter of the man who wrote them, I was trusted with the rougher drafts of the story. When Dad gave me a section of the first one, I was pregnant with my youngest girl and stayed up way too late, already exhausted, and read it. At that time he hadn't even given me the ending. I read it in its entirety later on. When Book 2, The Walking Flame, came out, I left the house to its own destructive devices and got up from my chair only to feed the children, grab a snack for myself or use the restroom. I would end up reading the last incredible chapter of that book over and over again as I wished and waited for the third book. Then at last! Book 3, The Sword of Heaven, was in my hands, and again my house was buried in the mess with no hope from me as I read and nursed my young son and tried to balance my baby and dad's manuscript on my lap. That time I was actually allowed to read the final chapters before the book was released on Amazon.

Throughout all these literary entrapments, my husband was patient and forbearing with my neglect of our home, but I suspect that was only because the books had been written by Dad. And after I had Book 3's manuscript in my hand and confided in him with a laugh that Dad had actually named a character after him, Matthew (who does not read for pleasure, only business) began the series, and miracles of miracles! Read the whole thing by nightlight in the evenings while waiting for our youngest girl to drift to sleep.

Now Dad tells me he'll give me Book 4 soon, but won't say exactly when. Still he teases me with the details of the story - with war scenes and devastation and forecasts of how the whole series will go down but no solid information. He tells me frankly that Book 4's ending will be more astounding than Book 2's, and I'm trying to imagine how. I'm puzzling over which of my favorite characters he might be inclined to kill off, and if it's Thaniel he dooms (Thaniel is a brave, proud and reserved being, the main character Aram's closest friend and a fellow warrior), I just might consider not speaking to Dad for a while. But I don't think he'd do that to me or any of his readers. I don't think he would.

But I don't know, do I? Because I don't have Book 4. Do I think that by writing this post, my dad will hurry to finish the manuscript and send it off to his youngest child with love? No, not really, but I wish he would. I still have one leftover candy cane, and no new book to enjoy with it.